


The Death of Terezi Pyrope

by sunbreaksdown



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, F/F, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-10
Updated: 2012-03-10
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:30:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbreaksdown/pseuds/sunbreaksdown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miserable lives meet miserable ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Death of Terezi Pyrope

     She is fourteen sweeps old, and yet her path in life is still paved by her lusus' incessant hunger.

     Seagrifter that she is, Vriska's hair is all askew, as if the ocean breeze has not left her for all the travelling inland she's done. She holds her hat in one hand, large blue feather secured on the left side. Like it is a quill, at the ready to scribe upon the hat, with some story or another to tell. But it only speaks of salt. The whole of her is salt, dried in streaks across her skin, encrusted into the fabric of her long coat. She smells of salt, of half a dozen shades of copper, and also of her own fading bruises, pale as a rotting peach.

     This is the sixth time she's scaled the staircase since returning to her hive, and over one shoulder, she holds the last body she's brought back with her. The troll is younger than her, though by no means young, and the colour of his blood doesn't seem much to matter, so long as it's warmer than hers. Once upon a time, Vriska would congratulate herself for taking down green-bloods, like it was some great feat. As if she was ignorant to just how vicious a rustblood could be. Now she doesn't care whose throat she cuts open, whose back she slides a knife into.

     Spiderfood is spiderfood is spiderfood. There's no need to rejoice in the continuing of a cycle.

     Down at her lusus' great web, Vriska finds that many of the bodies have been half-devoured already. With a heave, she drops the last corpse to the ground, along with those that still have most of their limbs intact. Vriska surprises herself in not immediately turning to leave. She backs away a few paces, finds herself a rock to sit upon, and watches the grim spectacle unfold.

     Her lusus eats quickly, as if it wasn't presented with two-dozen freshly culled trolls four days ago. All of decent sizes, too. As Vriska grew alongside her lusus' hunger, she became capable of taking down adults, fully-grown trolls with their frames filled, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Nothing ever does. There is a grotesque clicking and clattering of a huge, unhinged spider-jaw as her lusus eats, and as nonchalant about murder as Vriska may be, this still turns her stomach. Flesh and muscle alike are stripped away from bone in a process that is no less unsettling for seeming mechanical, automated, in some way.

     The bones are discarded thoughtlessly. Some land in the web, others take their place amongst the pools of shadow, and fewer still make their way to Vriska. Eyes not leaving the maw splattered like the Grand Highblood's throne room, Vriska leans forward as a loose bone, now void of any use, rolls across the stone floor. It was part of a leg, not long ago, a working limb with a function and a purpose, and she presses the first two fingers of each hand to the ends. She examines it in the dim light. It strikes her as somewhat disrespectful, toying with it like that, which is strange; she thought nothing about diminishing respect when she took the troll's life, when she served them on a platter to her lusus. Funny to think that she's going to end up like that, one day.

     She tosses the bone over her shoulder, and the darkness swallows it up. It takes roughly a minute for her lusus to finish what it's been given, and Vriska would spread the meal out more effectively, had she not already learnt her lesson. Any less than ten corpses, recently, and her lusus bellows and shrieks, causing every brick of the castle above to tremble, threatening to jostle out of place. It's only then, without a scrap of food in sight, that her lusus actually looks at Vriska. There is a clear, glassy quality to all eight of its eyes, that somehow makes it seem childish. Like all it knows is that it requires food, something more to gnaw on to continue thriving, but lives on for no reason but to have its hunger sated.

     Vriska would feel sorry for it, if she wasn't suddenly feeling the strangest chill across her skin, pricking at the back of her neck. She has wondered, more than once, how much restraint it takes her lusus to hold back, to keep its venom inside. Vriska could be paralysed within a matter of moments, and made a meal of quicker still. But there must be some rationality there, no matter how the hunger grows, because they both know that Vriska is the only one obligated to bring down swarm after swarm of dead trolls. Still, her lusus' gaze settles on her, and Vriska believes it to be a sensation unlike any other, wanting to flee from her own guardian.

     “I know, I know,” Vriska murmurs, taking slow steps forward, hand coming to rest between her lusus' two lower eyes. To prove to herself that she isn't scared. “You're hungry again.”

     Her lusus' hard, white shell of a skin reverberates beneath her palm as it grunts in agreement, and Vriska laughs softly under her breath. She tilts her head towards her lusus, forehead resting above a monstrous mouth. She is tired, in body and mind alike, and has been for as long as she remembers. Thinking back to the time she lost an arm and an eye, she does her best to recall where her lusus was, and what it was doing; and it was right here, of course, each leg carving into the rocky canyon around it, impatient, hungry. Vriska had bled blue onto her respiteblock floor, and the only thing louder than her own whining was her lusus' demand for food.

     Breaking away, Vriska dips one hand into her pocket. She has often wondered when her real life is going to begin, and knows that it could have done so yesterday, last week, long sweeps ago, if only she'd take responsibility. If only she stopped cowering in the shadow of a spider. Her life could begin today, she knows. Her fingertips press to the dice in her pocket. Staring thoughtfully at a blank spot in the dark, she tries to count the numbers on each side by touch alone. But the sides have been smoothed down with use, made less distinct with age.

     Vriska pulls each one out, rolling them in her palm. They clink against one another, as if Vriska has salvaged the teeth left over from her lusus' last meal, and allows them to chatter together in fright. She is not thinking much of anything as she drops them to the ground with a flick of her wrist, because now her decision is being put into motion, she's coming to realise that it's a remarkably simple one. There are no pros and cons to be weighed out; only time to be wasted.

     There is a brilliant flash of blue light, like the reflection of fresh ice uncovered from beneath fresh snow, though no such chill envelops her. It isn't a particularly favourable roll. A lance materialises from the light, no bigger than a ship's mast, and embeds itself deep within her lusus' abdomen. The resulting shriek of pain should be enough to knock Vriska back, but she stands her ground, paying no heed to blood and scrags of flesh thrown from its mouth, where teeth weren't licked quite clean enough.

     She brings a hand to her face, wipes the blood and saliva and sinew away, and in brushing her palm across her mouth, Vriska pulls it into a smile. Her lusus' next scream comes out part-gurgle, and the stupid, gluttonous creature tries pushing itself up on all eight legs, as if absconding will bring relief. Its legs dance and skid from out under it. It is on six legs, then three, and when only the first two support it, Vriska steps back forward, waiting for it to collapse completely. And it does, with a thundering crash against stone.

     Vriska gets as close as she can. Her blood tears through her veins like it's molten lava, and the speed with which it pounds is the only thing that stops her from melting, inside-out. She is not elated. She is something beyond all that, and she needs to live each and every second of the torture of her own making on show before her. She needs to _feel_ it, needs to imagine that same pain racking and relieving her, because this isn't something she's going to experience again in her life. Blood pools at her feet, a well freshly sprung, and she hopes that her lusus does not think her unfeeling as its vision fails it.

     In that moment, she is anything but unfeeling.

     “Hah,” she says. Not eight laughs, just the one. The single syllable encompasses all that she has ever found wrong in her life, in herself, and comes out almost startled, as if she has discovered something new in her own mind. “There. I bet being hungry doesn't feel so bad right about now, huh?”

     Her lusus whines, pleading, rolling onto its side. It could take hours to bleed out. Good, Vriska thinks; good, even though a handful of hours will not compare to fourteen sweeps. She hoists herself up onto its craggy head as if scaling a cliff face. Even when she is positioned like that, her lusus' eyes roll back in their sockets, fixed on her.

     “Fuck you,” Vriska snaps, though she's grinning. She kneels, removing a dagger from her boot, and spears it into the closest eye. It is like trying to pierce an uncooked yolk on a wide, smooth surface, all jelly-glaze on the top, slipping away and altering the angle of her attack. She does it again, and then again. And so on. “Don't you dare look at me like that. Don't you _dare_.”

     Because for once, there is something written into the remaining three-eighths of her lusus' vision that crawls across her skin like a thousand smaller spiders, lost amongst dust, that says she needs her for something beyond her next meal. It speaks of what could've been, had Vriska been dependant on her lusus. Not vice-versa. This is what it must be like for the lucky few, for Kanaya and Terezi and Aradia, and Vriska's throat closes up tight. Her throat closes up tight as she fights back the feeling of _caring_ for this brute of a creature, the mockery of a guardian; and the only way to reverse the sensation is by forcing out a tear of laughter.

     Vriska laughs and laughs and it chimes against the rock face, echoes back at her and causes her surroundings to close in all around her. She laughs and she laughs and it doesn't take hours for her lusus to stop writhing in agony, because Vriska's handy with her dagger. She laughs and she laughs and she laughs, and there is so much blood.

     Stabbing something eighty-eight times is exhausting. Vriska slides off the side, back onto solid ground, back onto a film of something that she can't force her blade into. Her kneecaps hit the ground first, and the rest of her follows in a single, swift movement. She laughs. She makes a web for herself out of her own limbs, spindly arms not cushioning her against an unforgiving surface.

     She shudders with her laughter, and at some point, the tremors turn to sobs.

*

     The sight of her alone would make a subjugglator quake in their bloody boots. 

     She strides into the courtblock, head held high. She is a free woman. She does not fear imprisonment or execution, or even the law itself; and there are no obligations for her to uphold. Not anymore. Her clothes are not tattered, the thick leather of her boots is not scuffed and creased from skidding across a damp deck in the heart of a storm, and the glint in her eye is not sparked by desperation. Something else, perhaps, but not desperation.

     Vriska is not welcome there, nor is she turned away. Nobody dares to approach her, to tell her where she can and cannot go. Even if she caused a racket in the hallway, the neophytes would hesitate to take hold of her by the arms, and expel back onto the streets. Driftwood washing up on shore, torn and churned by the waves. Vriska knows this all well enough, and finds that she has greater power in restraining herself, in keeping calm, collected. They can't help but wonder when and where she will lose hold of herself, as if it's an inevitability, and they keep their distance. Vriska doesn't even need to manipulate them.

     Not that she doesn't touch their minds. She glides over the surface, drinking down incoherent jabs of fear.

     The courtblock has undergone some level of redecoration, lately. Last sweep, the Grand Highblood took his bat and beat His Honourable Tyranny into a pulp. Not even the bones were spared. Black blood still stains the floor, and there are those who say that there's still the stench of death and dying about the place, if one breathes in deeply enough.

     Vriska thinks that there will always be the stench of death and dying about this place. It has nothing to do with the remains of His Honourable Tyranny, though they did exasperate the problem somewhat. 

     One advantage of the Grand Highblood having taken over is the fact that proceedings are a lot more speedy, now. Even though His Honourable Tyranny was wont to stop court midway through to chew on the defendant, Gamzee Makara gets through cases with unprecedented speed. And a smile. Trials are nothing but a farce, because the accused always end up hanged, or worse.

     Outside of the trial currently under way, Vriska leans against the wall, eyes closed, waiting for the High Legislacerator to be done. It's been a while since she last found herself here. But she is not on edge, because things are going to work out for the better, this time. Because things _are_ better. There is nothing to distract her, nothing to demand her time and suck her dry. She has space and freedom to be with Terezi properly now; and this is not the sole reason she sought her independence, though it is now all she can think of.

     There is a little blue under Vriska's nails, caught there like dirt. Sometimes, when night threatens to turn to morning, Vriska thinks she sees blood on her hands in the gauze of light dawn wraps around her. But whenever she reaches the washblock, or otherwise finds water to clean them with, there is never any blood there. Not even between the creases made by the joints of her fingers. No matter how hard she scrubs.

     The trial comes to a close inside the block with a shriek, a thunder of applause, and then another stint of screaming. Eyes closed still, Vriska listens to the swarm of rustbloods making their way out of the back doors, and makes believe that she too is blind. That she can tell apart each individual gait from the one she's waiting for, and smell the scent soon to be drifting towards her. Sharp-mint and inflexibility. 

     Vriska's eyes open with the creak of the door. Terezi steps out, cane in hand, and takes three paces before stopping. It's perfectly possible that she knew Vriska was there midway through the trial. She turns her head very slowly, as if maintaining the composure that Vriska too feigns, but it is difficult not to imagine her heart surging and pounding in a way that can't quite be dissected. Vriska smiles at her. She has been smiling for a long time, and the smell of her cheeks lifted and the skin around her crinkled has faded into normalcy, like the air around them.

     Terezi has only grown more jagged with time, but she is not rough around the edges. The points that make up her elbows and knees and hipbones cut clean through; they do not splinter or serrate or graze. Her horns are tall, wondrous things, standing for truth and justice in equal parts, and she is the embodiment of the law itself. Unyielding, unbreakable. She is always aware of what needs to be done, and what she will have to do.

     “Serket,” Terezi says, dryly. It has been a while since she spoke the word, but not long since she last thought it, and her tongue remembers the shape of the vowels. “You shouldn't be here.”

     Vriska hears none of it. She steps forward, taking hold of both Terezi's hands between her own, clumsily. Terezi protests through a scowl, says that she can't hold onto her cane if Vriska does that, and Vriska just takes it from her, holding it between her knees. Terezi's gaze fixes on her, undeterred by her own blindness, and she is lawmaker and prophet rolled into one. The look she gives says that she knows what Vriska is going to tell her; or that she at least knows the general shape of what's to come. Because it's never anything good, when it comes to Vriska Serket.

     It's never anything good, and Terezi is the only one who could ever get away with looking at her like that as she thinks such a thing. Not that Vriska's self-control isn't pulled taunt, ready to snap, as she matches Terezi's gaze. She remembers how things have gone in the past, and though she knows that Terezi has apologised time and time again, because she _wants_ this to work so very much, but just knows that it won't, Vriska is all too aware that things are going to be different this time.

     And she might always say that, but this time, she means it. She feels something beyond her own self-delusion, and there is too much weight in it for it to be an empty promise. 

     “Listen, Pyrope. _Terezi_ , listen—” Vriska says in a hushed whisper, louder than her regular voice. Hoarser. “I've done it. I'm free now! We can do whatever we want, because I won't have to keep disappearing, off to sea or wherever the fuck I usually have to go.”

     The words tumble out with the sort of franticness that comes with having practised something over and over, wherein the actual situation is something that preparation does nothing to help. Vriska squeezes Terezi's hands, hoping that it will be enough to send her meaning pulsing into her. And it does, in a sense, because Vriska's fragmented ramble makes her voice quiver. And Terezi is well aware that there's only one thing that ever does that to Vriska. Vriska watches as she leans closer, and with the two of them in such close quarters, Vriska almost forgets how to breathe. She is suddenly certain that she must be doing so too loudly, that it doesn't follow the right sort of rhythm. And then she is breathing manually, chest lunging with each breath. 

     “What happened?” Terezi asks, and though she is telling herself not to go through with this song and dance again, there is something like concern in her voice. But with or without any music, they both skid awkwardly along, Terezi not able to deny that she cares, Vriska no longer able to pretend that she doesn't crave it. Like she craves recognition, like she once ached to fill her ancestor's boots.

     But she is not Mindfang, and she never will be. Vriska knows that, has accepted that. Embraced it, even. Because Mindfang was a fool, as far as she's concerned; she isn't about to meet the same end that the woman did, isn't about to face off against the law when there is power within her rightful grasp that won't set the courtblock against her. She can and she will survive alone, just—

     She just needs Terezi to listen. To understand.

     “There was a rock slide. It was a mercy kill. God, it would've taken _hours_ , if I hadn't done anything, and I couldn't let anyone go through that. I...” She bites on her lower lip. She justifies her actions to Terezi, and just like that, it's as if it really happened. She still hears the ungodly crash of rocks falling, an exoskeleton cracking, and then the ring of a guillotine's blade as her luck finally pays off, and puts her poor lusus out of its misery. The sound of metal cleaving heads clean off she borrows from the courtblock itself, like a track set to repeat in the back of her mind. Letting go of Terezi's hands, momentarily trapped in the maze of her own manufactured thoughts, Vriska makes a quick grab for her wrists. “I did what I had to, I guess.”

     Terezi doesn't believe her. It might scare Terezi, just how convincing Vriska is, how much she believes herself, but Terezi knows that none of it is true. None of it, except for the last part. She reeks of deceit, but not in the bitter, foul way Terezi is used to. Still, a lie is a lie, and for all it's worth, Vriska may as well have spider-guts and bile matted in her hair. A noose around her neck, twisted and knotted out of unfurled intestines. 

     The corner of Terezi's mouth tugs towards, like she believes her. Vriska wonders if either of them will stop wanting that so very, very much.

     Tugging one of her wrists free of Vriska's grasp, Terezi takes her cane, and hurries to lead her out of the courtblock. Vriska follows silently, willing to be lead, so long as it is away from the gallows. Outside, where there is space to talk more freely, neither one of them take advantage of it. Vriska strides ahead with light steps, a brisk pace that Terezi has trouble matching, and heads straight for her lusus.

     Curled up, the dragon resembles a small, snow-covered mountain on a distant horizon. It wakes, slowly, luxuriates in the feel of sleep draining away, and being as blind as its charge, tilts its head towards Vriska, breathing in deeply. Vriska stands tall, even when faced with a dragon. Talons and scales and fire-breathing snouts do not scare her.

     Vriska remembers the day Terezi's lusus finally hatched, eight sweeps ago. It doesn't feel as if it's been much more than a week between then and now, in spite of all that's happened. Because what's happened no longer matters. The only thing of importance anymore is that Vriska no longer has any responsibilities, any commitments, that are going to pull her away without so much as a moment's notice. Terezi doesn't have to worry about waking up and not finding her there anymore, doesn't have to worry about the long weeks she disappears for, scouring the seas, bringing home bodies. She doesn't have to worry about her not coming home at all.

     Neither of them deserved that sort of stress. But things are going to be fine, at long last. Pursing her lips together, mind almost glazed over by her own thoughts, Vriska reaches out, placing a hand against the dragon's snout. She has always liked Terezi's lusus, has never quite found it within herself to be bitter about how close the two of them are; only quietly resentful. The dragon, magnificently smart creature that it is, seems to sense something like this in her, and tolerates the touching. Great white wing spread out against the black sky, but it does not growl under its breath, does not shake her away.

     Terezi climbs astride the dragon, and offers down a hand to Vriska.

     Vriska takes it, placing herself behind Terezi. Her arms wrap around her waist, and she leans towards her. There is a clean but distant smell about Terezi, like a hot piece of fabric letting off steam.

     “It's just for tonight,” Terezi murmurs under her breath, as if she has said as much a hundred times over. Rather than merely thought it. She promises herself as much as she does Vriska.

     “I know,” Vriska says, nose pressed to the nape of her neck. “... thanks.”

*

     Equius sits at his oaken table, piecing together wrought iron, like a puzzle that no longer challenges him.

     Vriska is all wrought iron and frayed wires, nowadays. There is more to her than skin and bones, more metal than a single robotic arm. Today, she had the bolts at her ankle refitted, and the red, orange, yellow wires run up the length of her leg, like thick, insulated veins. They pump the wrong colour of blood, silvery sparks of electricity. The movement of her body has been translated into metal, eight fingers out of ten missing, with barely two intact limbs of her own. Terezi says, at first, that she is losing too much of herself; and later, that she has lost too much of herself. But realistically, more of her is flesh and pulpy organs than circuits and sensors. The metal she's been pieced back together with may shine in the light, but underneath the scar-tissue and prosthetics, she still smells of blueberries bunched together in a fist, of the sweat that rolls out in beads; and underneath that, the grey of her skin itself, unlike stone.

     “Then she has told you that things are over, once again,” Equius continues. He says a lot, because Vriska has told him a lot. It all comes out in a long-winded ramble, because Equius is easy to talk to. Vriska never has any idea of what to say to him, in particular, and so she ends it up saying it all, knowing that he won't judge her. And even when he does, she doesn't care, because he drains all the embarrassment of a situation and absorbs it for himself. “Good. She was beneath you.”

     Vriska snorts, tossing a loose screw at Equius' forehead. This, it seems, is his way of comforting her.

     “Fuck you,” Vriska says without spite, without much of anything. It isn't that Terezi's told her things are over, not at all. Terezi just doesn't understand the true extent of the situation, how much it will mean to the both of them. Vriska can't blame her. Sometimes, she can't comprehend it, either. She'll wake in the middle of the day, certain that she can hear a spider bellowing from deep below, and realise that the sound resounded from her own dreams. Or otherwise her own red-raw throat. “She can't be much more than a shade lower than me! Way higher than your moirail, anyway.”

     Equius merely furrows his brow, and ignores the indignity of being made a target of. He simply picks up the screw, making use of it in his work.

     If Darkleer hoped for his descendant to waste away in a hive, caught at the mercy of his self-made solitude, then surely Equius' ancestor would be proud of him. Vriska thinks back to the tattered pages of Mindfang's diary, but knows that she would never go to lengths as great as purposely carving off another limb to give Equius something to distract himself with. In truth, Vriska does not only visit when she requires a spare part, or when a joint becomes a little too rusty. They are friends, albeit reluctant to admit as much, and determined not to show it. 

     Equius resents her a little, she thinks. She had what he could not, though not necessary in the exact same form. For close to four sweeps she tolerated and challenged Aradia as a kismesis, before she went the way of all lowbloods, between a dozen sweeps or two. She died peacefully, of natural causes; the most shameful way for a troll to go. She was as pathetic in her death as she was in her life, and even now, Vriska and Equius do not speak of her. They do not speak of many things, but Aradia is particularly difficult for Vriska to even think of. Worse so than when she still had breath in her lungs.

     But in some ways, Vriska finds herself envying Equius. He knows exactly what it is he's doing, what he's good at, and has a rigid understanding of his place in life. He works for the Empire, creating spare parts for wounded nobility and royalty alike, along with warriors worth keeping. He has a skill, a job, a purpose; he has a distraction from the banality of every day, of the arid landscapes their lives have become. And then there's Vriska who, no matter how long she spent cursing her never ending quest for spiderfood, doesn't know what to do with herself without it.

     When Equius finishes working on the new part he's made, Vriska gets to her feet, and thanks him.

     Hat propped on her head, she heads back out to sea.

*

     Now that the burden of feeding her lusus is no longer hers to bear, and hers alone, Vriska forms a crew of her own at port.

     She pays them in salvaged treasure, hauled from the bottom of the sea, and they are hers to command. Within a perigee, they have all proven themselves useless, and Vriska has slaughtered them all; some by her own hand, others having taken their own lives with no more than a mere suggestion from the depths of her mind. When the more cowardly members of her crew saw what was unfolding, some dived overboard, feeling that the ocean waves would take more mercy on them. Having no use for it, she did not reclaim the treasure.

     It is not until she's back on her ship, back out at sea, that she realises she misses her lusus, in some way or another. At the very least, she misses what her lusus represented, what it demanded of her. Terezi was right: things have gone too far for them to ever be like they were, once upon a time, when things were as new and uninhabited and as red as everything Terezi ever graced with her tongue. There was some part of her missing, back on land, without a job to do, like a certain shape had been carved out of her. The others all had a purpose: Kanaya with her fashion and her garden, her designs, Equius with his metalwork, Terezi with the law, and even Gamzee, towering over proceedings. But the only thing she is good for, the only thing that calms her nerves, is this.

     The collection and hoarding of bodies.

     The hoarding part is new, as the corpses are usually devoured before they can begin weighing her ship down too greatly. She regrets killing her lusus, whether it was out of mercy or necessity or something more, because the realisation that she needed to use its hunger as much as it needed to be sated is startling in its clarity. The tremors only go away when she is making herself busy, and in being busy she is being useful. All of the lowbloods, making the voyage from one continent to another, that make the mistake of crossing her path, come to quick ends. There is a snap of a blade, a roll of dice, and then: nothing.

     Sometimes, sea dwellers surface and guide ships of their own through favourable currents.

     In both cases, Vriska does not raid any of the ships afterwards.

     In the weeks she has been out there, Vriska has kept hold of her life through a dozen storms. She has dealt with the riggings herself, tied the ropes like noose-knots, thick and sturdy, and allowed the surging waves to wash the deck clean. Vriska is interested in the act of murder itself, and has no fascination in the macabre, even if it is an inescapable part of it all. The crashing water soaks her through, makes everything smell of salt, but there are worse things.

     She has sailed between Scylla and Charybdis, she has avoided jutting rocks and imposing Imperial vessels alike, and she has laughed and smiled and cried without knowing why. She has no plans of heading back to land, because land no longer holds anything for her. She will stay out at sea, living off the barrels of alcohol below deck and the fish she can catch, and when the sails fade away and the deck goes to rot, she will commandeer another ship. 

     The night is unusually dark, despite the twin full moons piercing the sky, when a white shape blots out a handful of stars. At first, it is small enough to be a gull up close, but as it approaches it only grows, until Vriska can make out webbed-wings, tough skin pulled taut across bones.

     The dragon perches on the edge of her ship, burning eyes putting the moons to shame, and Terezi jumps off, boots thudding against the deck. Vriska is confused, because surely Terezi has plenty of work to occupy her back at the courtblock, or otherwise she should be busy, hunting down criminals. Although only the most abhorrent are hounded down by the High Legislacerator herself, these days. Still, confusion is soon trumped by elation, and when Vriska takes a step forward to greet her, she lifts a hand. At first, Vriska thinks she's halting her in her step, but it soon becomes apparent that she's sending her lusus off.

     And so it is just the two of them, and they take confident strides towards the centre of the deck, coming to face one another. When they are close enough to touch, Terezi places a rolled piece of parchment in Vriska's open palm, and then stands with her cane propped squarely between the two of them, both hands placed atop it. Mouth slanted to the side, Vriska unrolls the document presented to her, not caring a jot that her hands are grubby and smear across the white paper, and then skims across the bulk of the text.

     She doesn't understand it, because she doesn't take the time to. And because, clearly, Terezi has made some mistake. This isn't for her. Can't be, because it's all legal drivel, intolerably dull, pointing accusing fingers; nothing that applies to Vriska or otherwise interest her. She's well aware of why Terezi's here, and it's because she's finally come to her remaining senses. She's finally come to understand that Vriska is _free_ now, free to be with her, whenever she needs her. Whatever she asks of her.

     “What have you done?” asks Terezi. And Terezi, who has always given everything away with a laugh or a snort or a hurried, hushed whisper barely concealing how much she cares, keeps her tone flat. She speaks as if in a dream, not committed to the moment, not understanding the juxtaposition of her life against Vriska's. And the different ways they've both had to fight. “What are you _doing_?”

     “What am I doing?” Vriska repeats the question in the hope that she'll understand it, coming from her lips as it now is. Still, she is marred by confusion. “What the hell does it look like I'm doing? I've got to— shit, I've got to feed my lusus. God, can't you smell what's around you, Pyrope?” 

     Terezi crinkles her nose. 

     “It smells like callicarpa and aubergine.” 

     Vriska is very, very confused now. She tries to grasp onto what Terezi's saying, but her words are rooted in senses she doesn't think to make use of in the same way. With a scowl, she places a hand against Terezi's shoulder, because she needs to push past her. Either she needs to get far away from Terezi, or Terezi needs to get away from her, because she's _busy_ , can't Terezi see that? Some matesprit Terezi is, as overwhelmingly insensitive and unthinking as she is, all because she doesn't have a lusus that requires feeding more often than the Imperial Fleet. 

     Terezi snatches hold of her wrist, and Vriska freezes. The ship sways beneath their feet ever so slightly; too gently. There's a storm building, Vriska can taste it in the air, like someone's taken a length of pipe and beaten the life out of it, leaving everything stale. She licks at her lips, tries to pull away from Terezi, but doesn't get far. She sighs, shoulders heaving. Of course Terezi's sorry for not understanding what it is she has to go through. Of course she wants to apologise, to make things better between them again.

     But Vriska doesn't have time for that. She has to collect more and more spiderfood, otherwise her lusus is going to swallow her whole, and Vriska isn't willing to go into a black that deep, that absolute.

     “You have to come back to the courtblock with me, Vriska. Please.”

     Terezi doesn't say _Please, I can help you_ , because there's no helping anyone, once they're in the grasp of the law. The whole justice system is a formality masking a charade. 

     Vriska turns back to Terezi, and while she still can't understand a word of what she's saying, she suddenly feels very sorry for her indeed. A lot stirs up inside of her, flushed feelings of pity, and she immediately feels that she has a moment to spare for Terezi. If not a dozen. Reaching out, her arms wrap around Terezi, and this Terezi allows. Vriska pulls her close, rests her chin atop her head, and either she or Terezi feels so much younger; Vriska's not certain if the distinction matters. She rocks Terezi in her arms, just a little.

     “I can't even work out how you smell,” Terezi grumbles miserably, and Vriska imagines her breath on her skin, though she can't feel it for her clothing. 

     Vriska closes her eyes, and tries to find a way to explain herself. To remind Terezi of who she is, and let her know that her motives, her feelings, haven't changed. After all these sweeps, how she feels about Terezi hasn't changed. It's one of the only things she's ever known how to keep constant. She thinks back to the time that they were both eight, curled up in the long grass outside of Terezi's hive, and the shell of her lusus' egg had finally cracked. She remembers how they would bicker and squabble and laugh and smile, push each other into oozing pools of slime bubbling deep in the forest, and how Terezi's lusus would always scowl at Vriska, whenever she got the upper hand.

     She remembers a lot of things, all of their moments together, and it suddenly occurs to her that if Terezi cannot breathe in and work out exactly what it is Vriska's thinking and feeling before she herself does, that none of that matters.

     This, perhaps, is why Terezi finally gave up on them. On her. It's why she's trying to take her in; why she's trying to have her wrists put in shackles and her neck burnt by the friction of twisted rope. She doesn't want to have to deal with Vriska any more, if Vriska is an unknown, as unpredictable to her now as she makes herself to the rest of the world. The rest of the world that doesn't matter. 

     A warm trickle runs across the back of Vriska's fingers, flows in a river around her wrist before beginning to drip, creating a pool between their feet in no time at all. 

     Vriska pulls the dagger out, job done, and leans back enough to look down at Terezi.

     Terezi parts her lips to speak, but only a gurgle of blood rises from her throat. She is not angry, not surprised, and not even disappointed.

     She's just a little sad about it all, and Vriska certainly appreciates that much.

*

     Soon after, Vriska is very, very sorry for what she's done.

     She is sorrier still that Terezi's body remains lifeless, no matter how she kneels by its side and jabs her fingers against it. Gently, Vriska uses her fingers to brush Terezi's hair back into place, but only succeeds in smearing lines of teal across her forehead, the corners of her jaw, against her ears. When Vriska cannot make Terezi look presentable, she heads below deck, and makes use of a sheet.

     It is not her one of her best sheets. She doesn't have best sheets, because they are all stained and ragged in their own ways. The sturdiest piece of fabric on the ship is the sail itself, but the whole thing is so large that it would only swamp Terezi, and Vriska can't bear the thought of that. Can't stand to think of her trapped in the material, like a net with nowhere to slide her fingers through, lost, floundering. And so she spreads out a sheet on the deck, and rolls Terezi's body onto it. She folds it around her as best she can, which is difficult; there is sea-salt in her eyes, and she has to keep blinking and rubbing it out, bruising the back of her wrist with how fervently she does so.

     Once Terezi is wrapped up, face and body and horns and fingers covered, she could be any troll. Vriska becomes a little rougher with the moving of her body, the body, as she wraps rope around the sheet, soaked teal on the back, trying to keep it all together. That done, she uses the chain from a pair of shackles in her ship's brig, and wraps them around the throat of the troll encased in the sheet. So that it doesn't float to the surface.

     Heavier in death, the body is dragged over to the side of the deck, and up Vriska hoists it, sending it down into the hungry sea. She is always feeding something, in one way or another. There is a splash, like a stone breaking the surface, but barely even a ripple. After that, the only sound Vriska cares enough to listen to is the wind rocking her ship to and fro, to and fro.

     Vriska finds herself gravitating back to the centre of the deck, where she sits, waiting for the night to end. In between blinks, it's almost possible to convince herself that Terezi Pyrope was never there at all. In the same way that she has not put a skewer through her lusus' heart, in the same way that she is still struggling out at sea, in search of spiderfood. But she cannot get away from the thought of Terezi sinking to the bottom of the ocean, soon to be entangled in a snare of seaweed, where fish and smaller creatures will feast on her. Where her bones will one day be washed away, and then washed into nothing. And nobody, not even Vriska, will remember where it was she died, and nobody will know where to come, to pay their respects and turn their thoughts towards her.

     It's a hollow thought. Vriska can't describe how it makes her feel. She wants to say it makes her feel nothing, but nothing isn't quite correct. 

     Nothing is too easy.

     Eventually, something on the horizon breaks. Vriska takes a deep breath, waiting for the light to wash across her skin and then burn it clean off, but it isn't the sun rising. Staring forward, Vriska sees a dragon rise before her, but her gaze sinks right through it, right past the horizon, and through the emptiness of space beyond that. She hears the ship creak as the dragon perches on the bow, talons splintering wood, nostrils flaring. The sun doesn't rise, but there is an overwhelming light before her, the colour of dying leaves, and Vriska faces it head-on, shivering in the head.

     She's only ever done what she has to.

     Not turning to flee from the flames is the only choice she's truly ever made.


End file.
